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Monthly Archives: February 2014

Ingredients for two people:
Two cans of butter beans or cannellini beans or a mix of the two as we did
Six tomatoes cut into pieces
Two tablespoons of double concentrate tomato paste
A dash of white wine vinegar
A couple of sprinklings of garam masala
A couple of sprinkles of Tabasco
A couple of handfuls of salt
Dry breadcrumbs
A few bayleaves
Some fresh spinach to wilt
Handful of grated cheese. We used a very good cheddar.
Preheat oven to 180c

Sometimes I need a snack. Not the full dinner but something quick and very tasty. This is vegetarian and it’s always a complete delight to find something vegetarian can also be tasty. I don’t always need to masticate on some nice meat to be satisfied, though that may surprise you.

Fanny is very good at being quick. I am less so; I deliberate and procrastinate and it takes me a while but I do get there eventually. This however is reasonably quick to produce, although it’s all the better
if you don’t rush it. Let it do its thing at a gentle pace and the end result will be much more satisfying

This is a new recipe in which we have utilised a bunch of ingredients that were just hanging around looking rather forlorn.

As winter isn’t over yet , we needed something warming and we had Salamander to watch on iplayer, so it was out with the cans of butter and cannellini beans.

We also had some of those piss awful wintry tomatoes to use up as well.

Like I said, the situation was rather forlorn, and not improved by Fanny’s face. However we do have a rather fabulous condiments cupboard and that always helps in these moments.

So open the cans of beans and pour them into the pan with their juices and add the bay leaves. Cut up the tomatoes and add them to the pan.
Bring to the boil and then turn it down to let it simmer slowly.

Add the tomato paste, garam masala, the Tabasco, and the white wine vinegar at this point.

Once the vegetables are soft, add the spinach and let it wilt down and when the juices have reduced, then pour them into a good hearty dish, sprinkle on the breadcrumbs and the cheese and
stuff it in the oven for about twenty five minutes, or until golden brown on top.

Your family may be sniffy about vegetarian meals but believe me they will wants seconds. BG

Here is my recipe for Spanish Chicken – this is not an underhand reference to some gorgeous youth but a really very tasty recipe.

Chicken thigh fillets – 2 per person if they’re a reasonable size

Potatoes – maris piper or King Eddies work nicely

Red and Yellow peppers – one or two per person
An aubergine – does nicely for two (although I know a few who like to hog the whole thing for themselves….)

Couple of medium sized red onions OR a handful of shallots

A 200g chorizo sausage

Olive oil, sea salt, freshly milled black pepper, as much or as little garlic and either fresh green chilli or dried chilli flakes as you like, couple of lemons and maybe a lime and some paprika (- I used smoked paprika )

OK so here goes……

Boil a kettle full of water.

Take some potatoes (the amount depending on how many you’re feeding but 8 seemed to be more than enough for two folks……..) and peel casually – no need for perfection as I rather like the slightly earthier taste you get by leaving small areas with skin remaining but this really is down to personal taste. Chop spud into pieces about the same size as a medium-size tub of Vaseline. By now your kettle should have boiled so you’ve made a bit of a start on the process of par-boiling the spuds which should take about 15 mins.

While that’s happening, peel your onions which, if red and medium size, will need quartering. Leave the root intact so your quarters don’t fall apart (and for God’s sake if there are any Australians around, this root has nothing to do with your husband or toyboy). Frankly, slightly easier with shallots which can be left whole but , they are also smaller and fiddlier to peel so you choose. Plop these into your potatoes for the last 5-10 mins of cooking just to soften a bit.

Although everyone says salt your aubergine, you can if you want but I challenge anyone to taste the difference once the thing has been roasted at nearly 200 degrees centigrade for something over an hour – I’d like to see flubbalump Fanny retain any water after that . So, do it if you like, but probably not worth it. Instead, just slice lengthways into halves and then again into quarters (I did it again into eighths but there’ll be just too many “people whose first language is not English” reading this who won’t be able to say that so let’s just keep it simple). I then slice them again across, in the middle. (So, your quarter lengths then give you 8 pieces – or in my case, 16)

Likewise, chop up your peppers into strips (get 6 to 8 out of each pepper, depending on size) - chop out the green stem and get rid of little seeds first – duh!

Now get your chorizo and slice it up (think of WHATEEEEVVVVER you like while you do it..) into bits about one cm wide…..

Finally, before the assemblage at any rate, take around 30-50ml olive oil and squeeze your lemons, tipping the juice into the olive oil and then add your chillies (either sliced, if fresh, or some flakes, if dried), squish the garlic from your crusher straight into the oil/juice, then add good couple of pinches of sea salt, couple of shakes of paprika and black pepper. Stir this lot altogether with a fork.

Now wrap each piece of chicken round a red/yellow pepper slice (the veggie in the middle helps keep it moist plus having the chicken in a sort of cylinder rather than just flat also helps it from drying out too much. Place your chicken pieces into your roasting dish then basically cram your (hot!) potatoes, onion quarters/shallots (whichever), rest of the pepper slices, aubergines and chorizo slices in together – arranging reasonably artistically so you get colour variations although you can adjust this half way through cooking.

Pour your oil/juice melange evenly all over then slide the whole thing into you fan-assisted oven at around 190. You’ll know your own oven, ours isn’t great as it tends to burn things on top but even if you’ve got an Aga (really???!!!) you’ll definitely want to look at it after about half an hour and tumble everything about a bit so that if things are getting a bit brown/black on top, you can bring some of the components from below which are not getting so much heat at this stage, up to the surface. However, you really shouldn’t mind any nice crispy brown/black edges as this adds to the look and taste, trust me. After a total of an hour, I like to be a touch braver with those brown edges so I leave it maybe an hour and ten mins…. you should take the roasting dish out and you will find this gorgeous sizzling one-pot dinner, with the spuds just starting to roast, the aubergine gooey with some charred edges, some nice tender peppers (also nice dark edges)and your chicken cooked but still juicy enough.

The whole thing will be immensely spicy (if you do it like me), soft but crunchy and oozing with red-paprika-stained olive oil and chorizo which will also have some soft and some crispy bits. Satisfying and cheering, just what you want during a British winter and when you’ve got Fanny as a dining companion.

Yes quite my dears I know it’s hard to believe. I was handed a recipe by Fanny who suggested that we might like to try it. It involved a leg of lamb, and as I have subsequently learnt, you either roast it fast and hot and have some delicious pink meat if you want it that way, or you cook it long and risk dry grey meat as the end result. Despite following the recipe to its fullest, Fanny and I ate part of a very dreary leg the other day and it was desperately miserable. Staring at Fanny as she chews is not a fabulous experience at the best of times I can tell you.

An experience like this is the learning curve for any budding cook, but remember disappointment should make one strive to kick out and achieve more! Kicked out I did and in the process I caught Fanny on the shin which did not please her one iota. I wish I had referenced Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s book on Meat beforehand because I certainly turned to it in the aftermath! In this sizeable tome he rightly states just how dry a leg of lamb can be in a long bake. This man knows what he is talking about! Thus, having agreed with his findings, I decree that this an excellent book and suggest you get a copy if you’re serious about cooking meat well.

So there I was having a crafty fag (even though we’ve been banned from smoking dans la maison) this afternoon and in walks Brenda, tutting again. Nothing was said and I said through clenched teeth just to be polite “Oh hello luvvie do you want a hand with that?” as brightly as I could muster,’cos I could see she was about to start on this evening’s endeavour. It always worries me as I have to eat it too so, bless her, unless I’ve actually had a hand in the preparation I have to pretend to like it – plus I have to wash up by myself, which I loathe….

I enjoined proceedings at the point where she was murdering a couple of lemons and, after much tedious chopping and polite conversation, we assembled this cumin lamb thing and in to the oven it went – anyway the less said about it the better as five hours later with the anticipation properly ramped up, having got a plate of it each, we stared blankly at one another and declared it fit only for making shepherds pie. . . . Guess who will end up doing that? Hmm, can’t really blame the old dear for that one, maybe it’s just because I really only prefer a nice little tender fresh pink chop, rather than a big sweaty, hoary old leg…. many of you, I suspect, will be with me on this one…..

So there I was squashing down these half cut lemons on to the squeezer when it occurred to me that actually if I was squashed on a squeezer and had my innards pulverized for somebody else’s delicious recipe I think I’d be really rather irritated. Sorry but I do. From the other side of the kitchen where she was reading the paper between fags, Fanny showed no sympathy for the lemon whatsoever. I, having been the murderer in this case, have to say that for a fleeting moment , felt immediate remorse. However it was all for the good and as always, I’m right about that. BG